The need to use domestic technologies for LTE networks may disappear / M. STULOV / Vedomosti

The State Commission on Radio Frequencies (SCRF) is going to allow operators who have already received a license to use the 2.3–2.4 GHz frequency band for the construction of LTE networks to renew these permits under new conditions, according to a draft SCRF decision. The commission meeting is scheduled for June 30, according to its agenda (Vedomosti has copies of both documents).

It follows from the draft decision of the State Commission on Radio Frequencies that it applies only to companies that received frequencies in the 2.3–2.4 GHz range at a competition in the spring of 2010 and committed to building networks on domestic equipment. These are only Rostelecom in 39 regions and Vainakh Telecom in Chechnya, as well as Osnova Telecom. The latter, although it received frequencies in September 2011, is the only provider of mobile wireless access communications services with a confidential radio communications subsystem for the Ministry of Defense.

Now the draft resolution of the SCRF does not contain any obligations to use Russian equipment. An employee of one of the LTE operators heard that the SCRF plans to relieve operators from the need to build networks in the 2.3-2.4 GHz range using domestic communication equipment.

Anti-conversion

Contrary to the general trend of frequency conversion, i.e. their transfer from government use to shared or civil use, the State Commission on Radio Frequencies plans to transfer frequencies 450–453 and 460–463 MHz from shared use to government use, explaining this by the interests of ensuring law and order, according to the draft resolution of the commission (Vedomosti has a copy). The Ministry of Internal Affairs requested this.

According to the terms of the competition, Rostelecom and Vainakh Telecom were supposed to start providing services one and a half years after the license was issued, i.e. in the fall of 2011. However, this did not happen – the operators explained this by the impossibility of fulfilling the condition of building a network on domestic equipment, since such equipment did not exist. True, in 2013, Vainakh Telecom did build an LTE network in Chechnya, using equipment from the Tomsk Center for Wireless Technologies (CBT), a joint venture between Nokia Networks and the scientific and production company Micran. But later, the expert council of the Ministry of Industry and Trade refused to assign the CBT the status of domestic to its equipment, and then the project was closed altogether. Rostelecom transferred these frequencies, like other mobile assets, to a joint venture with Tele2 Russia – T2 RTK Holding.

Osnova Telecom, 75% of which is owned by Vitaly Yusufov's Ikominvest and 25% by Voentelecom (owned by the Ministry of Defense), received the required status of the sole supplier of the Ministry of Defense, and Roskomnadzor issued it licenses for the entire territory of Russia. But when Sergei Shoigu became Minister of Defense, the military department declared that it did not need the services of Osnova Telecom and deprived the company of the status of the sole supplier, asking the State Commission on Radio Frequencies to consider the issue of revoking frequencies from Osnova.

The Ministry of Communications did not do this. But at the end of February 2014, the Moscow Arbitration Court ruled to overturn the SCRF decision in favor of Osnova, following a lawsuit filed by the companies Vostok, Profinvest, and Resurs, which also laid claim to these frequencies. The last hearing on this case took place on Tuesday, June 2. The appellate court rejected the plaintiffs' demand to allocate frequencies to them, but upheld the cancellation of the allocation of frequencies to Osnova, according to the court's decision (Vedomosti has a copy).

The court refused to satisfy the applicants’ main demands, but at the same time satisfied their optional demand, depriving the outcome of the trial of its goal – “restoring the violated rights of the applicants,” the representative of Osnova is surprised and promises that after reviewing the reasoning of the court’s decision, Osnova Telecom will file a cassation appeal.

Thanks to the court's decision, Osnova Telecom now has no right to use the 2300-2400 MHz band, says the plaintiffs' representative. He believes that Osnova Telecom's lobbyists are trying to circumvent the court's decision by adopting at the next SCRF meeting "some illegal document allowing Osnova Telecom to use the 2300-2400 MHz band regardless of whether the court overturns the SCRF's decision of September 2011."

Osnova considers the solution proposed in the materials for the SCRF meeting regarding the frequencies of 2.3–2.4 GHz to be illegal, says its representative. “This is yet another sophisticated attempt to give value to a long-allocated frequency resource, a continuation of the story that everyone could observe at previous SCRF meetings,” he believes, adding that Osnova Telecom has built a network in 19 cities, investing more than 6 billion rubles in it.

A representative of T2 RTK Holding declined to comment. It was not possible to contact a representative of Vainakh Telecom. A representative of the Ministry of Communications did not comment on the details of the agenda of the SCRF meeting, but said that, in his opinion, it is incorrect to understand this item of the agenda as a release of operators from the conditions of their previous licenses.

SCRF to help Tele2 renew license